The coldest morning of the year so far. Every few minutes, a tree with ice in its heartwood cracks like a gunshot. The ridge turns pink.
sunrise
Windy and overcast at moonset, at dawn. Just when I’m thinking it’s unremittingly bleak, the gray sky acquires the faintest hint of pink.
My first morning back since the New Year: clear, still, and bitter cold. The stream’s gurgle. The enthusiasm of small birds for the sunrise.
The lacework of branches against the sky, with the half moon high overhead. A pileated woodpecker cackles. A small cloud’s belly turns pink.
In the half hour it takes the first red cloud to become a sunrise, every crow in the area has a suggestion. Even a distant rooster weighs in.
Hard frost. As the sky reddens, the meadow comes alive with chirps and trills. A milkweed pod’s frozen spill of gossamer.
Clouds with blue veins and sunrise bellies. Two nuthatches trade harangues. A crow summons other crows to—I’m guessing—a fresh gut pile.
No frost for the first time in weeks. Sunrise hidden by clouds, signaled by a slight brightening and a lively exchange between three nuthatches.
Clear and cold. Two nuthatches trade riffs at the edge of the woods. I watch the rising sun crest the ridge one blazing filament at a time.
Sunrise, and a contrail becomes a golden sword pointing east. The waxy chatter of goldfinches in the treetops. The silence of the factories.
A thin wash of cloud at sunrise, and the yard gray with frost. A raven flies low over the hollow giving two-syllable croaks.
The streamside barberry is orange as a hunter’s cap. A crow silhouetted against the sunrise swipes its bill on the branch as if sharpening a knife.
A wren calls under the porch. It’s five degrees below freezing. An inversion layer brings the whine of tires over the ridge, red with sunrise.
Cold and very still. Every leaf in the myrtle patch—Grandma’s legacy—is edged in white. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.